Without a lawyer, immigrants lost in a system stacked against them

Friday, December 15, 2017

"Hundreds of thousands of people trapped in our broken immigration system don't need amnesty to reconcile their status in the U.S., say immigration experts — they simply need justice as defined by the nation's laws.

Immigration experts say that perhaps more than a million people don't know they are eligible for legal residency. Others are wrongfully detained or deported because they don't know their rights or can't access legal aid that could help them. Without the right to a provided attorney, the immigration system is often stacked against them.

"To conceive of a system that has such devastating consequences for people's lives, on their freedom and on their possibilities of the future, and to think that they're not entitled to counsel is just outrageous," said Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, director of research, advocacy and leadership development at the Hope Border Institute and research professor of human rights at University of Dayton School of Law..."